Lawmakers Lower The Boom On Sagging Pants

Since the mid-1990s, hip-hoppers and posers across the country have hitched their fashion sense to a droopy pants style called ``sagging.''

Older people with tightened belts have looked on with confusion and disgust as young men lowered their trousers to mid-thigh and cheeky young women slipped into thong-baring slacks.

Some of these older folks have complained to lawmakers, prompting proposed bans on expository trouser slumping, mostly in the South. Officials in Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Georgia and Virginia have proposed, and in several cases, passed, rules aimed at the un-cinched.

Now Connecticut will take a crack at the issue.

The Stratford town council is considering an ordinance ``to address the problem of persons parading around Town in Public places with their pants sagging well beneath their buttocks,'' according to the proposal. Violations would bring fines of up to $250 or jail time.

``It shall be unlawful,'' the proposed rule reads, ``for any person in any public place or in view of the public, to be found in a state of nudity, or partial nudity, or in dress not becoming to his or her sex, or in any indecent exposure of his or her person or undergarments, or persons with pants which fall below the buttocks exposing their undergarments or be guilty of any indecent or lewd behavior.''

Council member Alvin O'Neal said he sponsored the ordinance after hearing repeated complaints from older constituents -- and not about their plumbers.

``A lot of seniors have complained about when they're out in stores and public places, all they see is undergarments,'' O'Neal, a Democrat, said. ``What a person does privately is their business, but when you're out in the public, this isn't something that people want to see. I don't want to see your underwear.''

Within the past year, several communities in Louisiana, including Mansfield and Lafourche Parish, have passed sanctions on sagging. A city council member in Atlanta recently introduced a proposed ban, calling sagging pants an indecent ``epidemic.''

As in Stratford, proposed and approved rules in other communities are aimed mainly at young men caught with their pants down, but they also address women who display thong tops above low-slung waistbands, a style known in some circles as ``whale tail.'' Proscribed punishments are significant. In Mansfield, La., for example, anyone caught showing their undies faces a fine of up to $150 or 15 days in jail.

``I thought there were cooler heads up there,'' Katie Schwartzmann, a staff attorney for the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said when she heard about the proposed Stratford ordinance.

``This is really an area that's not appropriate for government interference,'' Schwartzmann said.

The ACLU has not launched a court battle, but it may, depending on how the laws are enforced, Schwartzmann said. Some critics say such laws are discriminatory, aimed mostly at young black men. But O'Neal in Stratford and some other government leaders who have proposed sagging sanctions are black themselves. They say the rules are not about race, but about decency.

In any case, Schwartzmann said, such rules are ridiculous.

``I could walk down Main Street in Lafourche Parish in a bikini, but with a shirt that exposes my undergarments in any way, I'm getting a ticket? That just doesn't make sense,'' Schwartzmann said.

Also, she said, the rules are unnecessary since indecent exposure laws exist. Schwartzmann and other critics say such laws open the door for even more senseless restrictions, and they're particularly worried about regulation of ``dress not becoming to his or her sex.'' That phrase is in the proposed Stratford rule, which O'Neal said he based on a Louisiana ordinance.

``If you look at these ordinances, what's next?'' Schwartzmann said. ``Could they ban a certain color of clothing? I don't see any distinction between banning baggy pants and banning the color, navy blue. To me it makes as much sense.''

The loose pants style is popular around the country, including the streets of Hartford, but most young men who let their jeans hang down also wear extra-long T-shirts that drop well below the belt line. The loose style, says Jay Robles of Hartford, is comfortable. Robles, 24, was riding a bicycle down Main Street Thursday. His belted jeans hung low, exposing about half his black underwear. Robles said he doesn't always wear his pants low -- only when he wants to show some ``gangster style.''

Some people can't wear their pants extra loose all the time, even without a law on the books. Bob Pitt, 42, of Stratford, walking in his hometown Wednesday wearing baggy, low hanging pants and a big T-shirt, said his supervisor at work has told him to cinch up. Schools around the country also prohibit the receding beltline.